Speeders in Jefferson may soon be caught by cameras located at red lights.

The Jefferson City Council will decide at its Dec. 22 meeting whether or not to approve a proposal from police chief Joe Wirthman to locate cameras at traffic lights on Hwy. 129 at I-85. The cameras would not be placed at the traffic light in downtown Jefferson.

A study was conducted of the traffic volume, accident rates and violations at all of the traffic lights in town. The traffic lights at I-85 had the most accidents and speeders.

At a meeting Monday night, Wirthman said the cameras would reduce the number of accidents.

An official with Lasercraft, a company that offers the cameras, said they have seen a 50 percent reduction in crashes after the system is installed.

If the cameras are approved, there would be a 30-day warning period. During that time, violators would receive warning notices in the mail. After that, tickets would be mailed to speeders.

Lasercraft presented a $4,695 per month fee for installing, maintaining and operating the program. The company would mail citations and collect the fines.
Information was also provided on how much money this brings in for other towns in Georgia. In Alpharetta, $1.1 million in fines was paid in 2005 for tickets issued by the company.

Oh yea, safety being the concern. Give me a break, they are looking for a way to increase revenue. Since the housing market has taken a hit there has been less minority's traveling through Jefferson to harass and fine. Look at the statistics.

Notice the last line of the article. "Information was also provided on how much money this brings in for other towns in Georgia." That's the real reason that there is a push to get these cameras installed. The goal is to generate revenue, not to prevent accidents. That is an abuse of power.

If you want more cops on the streets, then be ready to pay more taxes. No, that is what I thought you would say.
Let’s get to the real issues: money and facts.
Total cost per year, based in the article, is over $56,000. Is this per intersection or for the whole city? Nowhere in the article does it say how many intersections will have this installed and how much per intersection this will cost. Is this $4,695 a month per intersection or for the entire city? Hey Mike….how about giving us the REAL story with the true numbers so we can make an intelligent decision. You are so quick to slam the police that protect you but forget to publish all the facts.
For the sake of easy math, some people are a bit challenged in this town, if this $56,340 ($4,695X12) per year covers 10 intersections, it will cost $5,634 a year per intersection, which can be recouped by tickets since most people have not idea what a speed limit sign is let alone a stoplight or sign. If this number of $4,695 per month is per intersection and then you have 10 intersections, then that is over a half a million dollars!! In addition, how can you compare Jefferson to Alpharetta? Have you been there? There are more intersections on one street then there are in the entire city of Jefferson. Any extra revenue from this program must go back into the JPD budget to purchase new equipment and get the police trained. This must be a program that pays for itself and not be another Jefferson blunder such as the great Jefferson Radio Station.

I'm sorry, but any body who falls for that "it's about public safety" CRAP is a fool. Especially in Jefferson, where we had to lose quite a few lives and make it front page news for months on end before we could even get a traffic signal at the by-pass at Kroger.

Wirthman, if the money it generates is put to good use, whatever....but don't insult our intelligence by claiming your concern is for our safety. 'Cause that's just straight up BS.

Simple, but I'll explain it for you. Hispanics build a lot of houses; less houses being built means less Hispanics driving; less Hispanics driving means fewer easy marks for the local police to harass & extort. Simple. BTW, if you think the police are so underfunded, I wound suggest YOU go down and write them a check out of YOUR pocket for whatever you can spare, and stop trying to plunder the pockets of others. How much extra money have you donated this year? ...I thought so.

Shocker... the company that sells the cameras did a study that found it increased safety. LOL Anytime an increase in govt is proposed, it is always a "safety" issue or "necessary". They want you to break their laws so you can pay fines. not enough fines coming in, then just create stricter laws. They do not care about anyone's well being except their own.

Hey Kathy,
Why dont you point that anger where it should be pointed, at the GA D.O.T. they were the ones who dragged their feet and at first refused to allow a light at the Kroger intersection. It took the citizens and other people in the county to "raise hell" including geting state and federal level elected officials involved to get that light.
any police department's concern is for safety it is the elected officials that are concerned with the financial part of issues.

P.S. ALL fines that are collected from tickets issued by police departments goes to the city or county GENERAL FUND. Those fines help keep our taxes lower by providing funding to the city or county.
simple thought:
Tickets = lower property taxes.
no tickets = higher property taxes

Hey hmmmmmm - What are you talking about? First of all, I'm not angry about anything, that's just my stated opinion on the matter. My statement was that if you believe the installation of red light cameras is motivated by concern for public safety, well, I simply question your intelligence.

And then you confirmed my opinion by repeating what I said, it's all about the money. So, I'm sorry, I don't understand the reason for your post which is directed to me.

Kathy,
the anger i'm talking about is "I'm sorry, but any body who falls for that "it's about public safety" CRAP is a fool" Sounds like a little anger to me but that point really is irrelivent.

As for using the Kroger traffic light as an example, that is foolish. EVERYONE in the city and county fought for the Light. again I will say it was GA. D.O.T. that was the problem NOT the Police or the city Council.

you said "Wirthman, if the money it generates is put to good use, whatever". You assume that the police Chief has ANY say in where the money goes. For the police department is about stopping (or minimizing) the traffic accidents that happen around the I85 exchange(at last count I believe the number was around 67 this year alone). For the city council it is about safety and a side effect is fines.

Oh and you dont need to question my intelligence I really am a pretty smart person

These are expensive. They put them in our city and the
plan was that they would be paid for by the revenue
generated from the people who ran the lights. The problen
was that people stopped running those lights, and now the
city is stuck with a huge bill that it doesn't have in the
budget to pay for.

maybe if the cities stopped spending money on radio stations and what will end up costing us, the firing of former PD chief Glenn, which our city leaders totally mishandled. Also why are the Jefferson PD always on I 85 and never in town? Last year I waited 25 minutes for one when I was in minor traffic accident, just so we could file a report. They should worry about the drugs in Jefferson, not the drugs on 85 going to Atlanta, they just want the money, how about busting some Meth labs, there's enough of it in Jackson County, but then they'd have to admit there's a problem and really do something about it.

If these cameras are placed at the stop lights, people will stop running the lights. If people stop running red lights, trafic accidents will not happen as often. There will be less traffic tickets, because residents will not run the red lights. How will this make the city money? The fact is it won't, but it will be safer to drive. If you truely feel that this is about making money and not about safty, you must be someone who is afraid you will be caught. The simple fact is, this will cost the city more money than it will make. It will, however, make the streets safer for those of us who obey traffic laws. It will also give the officers more time to spend in other areas of enforcment. Are these really bad things?

Jessica, I like your name so I'll go easy on you. Any time government greed is allowed to run amok, it leads to corruption. In theory your idea would work. But with many academic ideas, reality is usually different. In this case it fails, and I can prove it: The city of San Diego installed cameras several years ago. At one intersection in particular, they cut the yellow light from 6 seconds down to 3 to make more people run the light. Instantly, a ton of tickets and a ton of wrecks happened. This is what you get when greed and power collide. Also, do you know what happens if your friend drives your car and runs the light? That's right, YOU get the ticket since the tag is in your name. I’m all for a city raising money, but let’s do it through value added services that make people want to come here, not through petty robbery disguised as the law.

I don't think the cameras are that bad of an idea. Yes, in reality this is all about revenue and not about safety; however, I think uniform enforcement of traffic laws can bring about good. Police officers currently harass citizens with selective enforcement of primarily BS traffic laws. I'm not advocating running red lights, but if everyone who breaks the law is given a ticket and not just whoever the cop catches, the people will not stand for these laws being in place, and I believe they will subsequently be overturned. I've been a fan of the speeding cameras for this very reason. Virtually everyone drives over the speed limit, but selective enforcement comes into play with tickets and revenue. Objectivity would put an end to this crap.

several of you have talked about "stopping on red" and that the point of these were to catch those who blow through red lights...

this article DID NOT mention that as the offense that would be ticketed...rather it would catch the speeders. i am familiar with cameras to catch those running red lights, but speeders? where does it stop? will they also send me a ticket for not using my blinker to change lanes at 1 AM when no one else is on the road?

Hmmmmmm. As I recall, a certain news outlet had to suggest the installation of a traffic light at Kroger before our elected officials, and those "concerned for our safety" even thought about it. (It's really hard for me to remember police officers at that intersection directing traffic to try & alleviate some of the danger....maybe I just have a bad memory.) Easy to grab a seat on the wagon after someone else starts pulling it. So much for that concern. If you need reminding, check the front page of The Jackson Herald from December 14, 2006 and the facts will come back to you.

Are you a student of politics at all? You think Wirthman does NOT have a say in where our money goes? I'll keep my sarcastic remark about that to myself.

And here's a tip....if you want to come off as "smart", learn to spell irrelevant.

Kathy,
just because I can't spell well doesn't make me any less smart.
as for where the money from traffic tickets goes, are you ready........ALL money from citations that stays in the city goes to the city GENERAL FUND. This is controlled by who?The city council.
They decide where and when money gets spent. the heads of departments in any city submit a budget then when it is approved they spend it on what it was budgeted for. the Chief just like any other department head can request extra money from the general fund, but, the city council decides.
So the only money he decieds about is HIS budget and that has to be approved by the city council.

I go through the I-85 and Hwy 129 intersections at least two times a day and some days many more and I have see very few wrecks. I work in off a very busy road in Gwinnett and see a lot of wrecks but they have not put in any Red Light Cameras. You would think that if they were that good at reducing wrecks they would put them in Gwinnett Country long before they would be need in Jefferson. I read a report by the Highway Safety Commission that did a study on Red Light Cameras. It did show that at most places the cameras were installed there was a reduction in side impacts but a 10% increase in rear-end collisions. I find it hard to believe that these cameras will catch that many speeders since it is very hard to get from Race Track to QT with out getting stopped by at least one of the four lights. I would like to see the numbers for how many wrecks have occurred at the intersections over the last year. I bet there are more wrecks down by Kroger than out at I-85. I do not think this is more about safety, it is more about money. They probably said it would make $300,000 a year for the city just like the radio station was going to make.

Where does it end? Does Jefferson not rake in ENOUGH money from unsuspecting outsiders & intimidated Hispanics on their Hwy. 129 / I 85 speed traps? No, I have not gotten a ticket (yet), so this isn’t based on any sour grapes. I just moved here this summer, but I already know better- I see them out there all the time so I adjust accordingly or avoid the roads altogether (evidently they focus almost solely on their moneymakers, thus they hardly fool with patrolling the backroads.) The actions of Arcade, Jefferson, and Pendergrass, when it comes to abuse of relatively scarce police resources, can only be described as disgusting. Jefferson is probably the worst, with its Gerrymandered city limits set many miles from the actual town, made that way to profit from businesses along 129 AND include sections of 129 / I 85 they can write tickets on. I wonder how many tickets were written on these roads one day in September, while 4 of my neighbors' houses were broken into & vandalized back in the actual town of Jefferson??? Furthermore, the gauntlet of speed traps along 129 conjures images of Sherriff Roscoe P. Coltrane and Boss Hogg chasing the Duke boys around Hazzard County. Adding cameras would make this aspect even more laughable. Is this the reputation Jefferson really wants? It is sad when police become a tool to raise money rather than protecting people from real crime. The argument that the speed traps and camera traps are about safety is tired and worn out- there isn’t any empirical evidence that either saves lives over the long term. It is all about greed, especially with the cameras, many of which are currently run by an Australian company called Redflex that gets a huge cut of each ticket written. Isn’t enough American money going overseas already, and why is a foreign company allowed to essentially enforce our laws?? I digress...I don’t know about “Lasercraft”, but many these companies are sinister in their dealings. Last January, Jay Morris Specter, one of Redflex's East Coast sales reps, was convicted of five counts of felony fraud for forging $1.2 million in South Carolina, according to state court records. Redflex had hired the man in 2005 to make presentations to various city councils across the country, this AFTER Specter was fired from a competing firm following allegations of fraud with THAT company surfaced. Think it’s an isolated case? Think again. On Oct. 20, 2006, the mayor of St. Peters, Mo., pleaded guilty to soliciting a bribe from another Redflex sales representative in June of that year, according to state court records. Redflex, Lasercraft, and other manufacturers of these things make up a 7 BILLION dollar a year industry. No wonder they reduced the yellow light time from 6 seconds to 3 seconds at a busy camera-patrolled intersection in San Diego, before they got caught! In fact, the State of Minnesota recently declared camera traps UNCONSTITUTIONAL, because victims don’t get equal treatment under the law, and a similar movement is afoot to ban them here in Georgia. Hopefully it passes. And, the fact that the car OWNER, who may not necessarily be the car DRIVER gets the ticket, has raised further constitutional questions. I know this “spleen vent” was somewhat long winded, but in closing, I leave you with Orwell's chilling words: “In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between the roofs, hovered for an instant like a bluebottle, and darted away again with a curving flight. It was the police patrol, snooping into people's windows.”

...actually look up the definition of "gerrymandering" instead of throwing it loosely at the City of Jefferson.

That accusation, sir, is one of the most off-base, ignorant uninformed things I think you could ever say about Jefferson.

Google "Fulton County, gerrymandering" and take a look at how the county lines were once drawn. THAT, sir, is what gerrymandering looks like.

I found some of your statements about the red-light cameras to be interesting and, perhaps, informative (had they been cited). Furthermore, nobody minds a good rant- it's healthy.

However, the next time you want to rant please be certain you're fully aware of all of the definitions of the accusations you toss at your local government. The City limits look the way they do because Jefferson has proactively attempted to supplement it's once-largely residential tax base with a healthy dose of industrial and commercial revenue- thereby, once the tax shelters expire, relieving the "little man".

In short, the rant was entertaining and sincere. Try to bang those out at least once a week- but go easy on George Orwell- he's not exactly the most reputable man to ever walk the earth.

Most of you are uninformed and off base! The lights are for red light violations, they have nothing to do with speed violations. If you aren't driving the car, you are right, you do receive the ticket, but if you have ever gotten one of these (and I have!) then you would also know that you can submit the name and contact information of the person who was driving your car. If that is verified then they get the ticket. Last but not least, they are for revenue plain and simple. But, if you don't want the police department to pull in any revenue, then grab your ankles and get ready for the screwing you are about to take on your property taxes, water bills and other city provided services because everything comes at a price and while you locals keep putting the same tired officials in office then nothing will ever change!

1 more thing...for the guy that thinks the city limits were "stretced" for extra revenue from traffic tickets @ the interstate, you really are the worst of all! If Bird Bruce hadn't put the effort into expanding the city limits, your taxes would be double right now. THat is about the only place in the city limits that generates any kind of real tax base right now.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Boy...not one but two people in a tizzy over the Gerrymandering comment. I must have struck a nerve and hit close to the truth. BTW, my taxes wouldn't be double since I don't live in Jefferson proper- the city limit is just across the street. So, my neighbors are in Jefferson; I'm not. Put that in YOUR pipe & smoke it, Ace.

For the guy who wants the facts cited, gee, what else can I do for you? Go do your own research, that's what I did. Google some of the phrases I used and you will find all I said & more. The facts are not that hard to find, perhaps actually looking for facts contradictory to your opinion & not waiting to be spoon fed would serve you well.

Finally, I don't know or care about George Orwell's personal life. It as nothing to do with, well, anything related to this discussion. I was quoting a book that he wrote. Most famous people have dirty laundry- just like the rest of us, only the fact that they are famous makes it public knowledge. Dig deep enough and you could say the same about George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, or any number of biblical figures. So exactly what was your point here?

Sorry I forgot one other thing. My comment was this: "Gerrymandered city limits set many miles from the actual town, MADE THAT WAY TO PROFIT FROM BUSINESSES ALONG 129 -AND- include sections of 129 / I 85 they can write tickets on". Now read your last paragraph, which only addresses half of what I said, the ticket-part. Contrary to what you said, I believe I adequately covered the issue of revenue raising from taxes as well as tickets. Not that I necessarily agree with far reaching annexation for that purpose either, mind you...but that topic is well outside the scope of this discussion. However, I acknowledged it I & called it ‘profit from businesses’, which for a municipality is generally synonymous with ‘tax revenue’, and I took it for granted that most readers could connect those relatively simple dots. I hope either you misread or misunderstood what I said- I like a spirited debate, but in order for it to work, ALL of what is said must be acknowledged, not just cherry-picked parts taken out of context in an effort support each of our positions. Cheers mate…

Here's another idea- since NO ONE here honestly believes the camera idea is about anything other than money…why not just make the annexed parts of 85 & 129 toll roads, & give all Jefferson residents free express passes? That way, the money from outsiders could still be raised without any phony pretenses of safety or otherwise. Out of state people could be charged on a sliding scale depending on how far away they live. Heck you could add a hefty surcharge for Hispanics, and even more for ones who don’t speak English. With this, limitless possibilities for income distribution abound!

For urineformed & 'perhaps you should', this is intended as a joke so please don't waste any time explaining how hard it would be to get the state to approve it.

Hitler would have loved to have had cameras looking for people that broke''his law''.........SO one could say WWHD,,,,THEN DO THE OPPOSITE,,,,this way you would stay out of trouble with your fellow man and the man above.....

How absurd can these peole be ,,,,once done ,,, never to be undone,,,,,,sort of ...like former president Bush taking some of our rights in the mane of ''being safe''

E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.Enter the string from the spam-prevention image above:

Phone*

What is zero plus one?

Remember Information? Subscribe to this entry

Submitted comments will be subject to moderation before being displayed.